Game Two, Without Player 2
by HopefulHeir
Summary: Everyone else is happy to have won, But you lost it all. What good is a new universe without him in it?
1. Chapter 1

What the fuck.

Why are there only four humans returning?

Why are the only four humans to return the ones you don't give a shit about?

 _Where the fuck is Dave?_

"You look awful," Kanaya's saying worriedly, running forward to catch the stupider-looking Strider as he stumbles.

"I feel like shit," Dirk says, pushing her away gently as he regains his balance and stands on his own. "But it's fine. We won."

Terezi stares before a wide grin breaks out across her face. "Yesssss! I knew it!" she cheers, pumping her fist into the air excitedly. "I knew sending you guys in would do it!" She grins down at Vriska, still unconscious on the ground. "Saved your sorry ass," she adds, snickering.

You look around them; maybe the others are trailing behind? Maybe they're getting rid of English's body? Maybe they're..?

Your hands ball into fists, and you grit your teeth. "Where are the others?" you ask, struggling to keep your voice even. You turn and look at them, and the looks on their faces make it difficult to stop the tears from coming to your eyes. "Where the fuck is Dave?"

"I…" Jane bursts into tears suddenly, like a dam just broke. Your bloodpusher is not where it belongs. It does not belong in your stomach. The girl clings tightly to Roxy, crying into her shoulder.

Roxy averts her gaze, hugging Jane tightly and shooshing her. "Shhhh, Janey, it's okay."

Your claws are digging into your palms and you don't fucking care because you need to see Dave Strider _right fucking now_ , where the fuck is he? "Someone answer me," you hiss.

Jake looks down at the ground awkwardly, and you swear you see his shoulders shake with the force of a silent sob. Is it possible for your heart to drop farther than into your stomach? Can that happen? You should probably seek medical attention. Dirk draws a deep, shaky breath. "Gone," he finally says, voice weak. "They're gone."

Kanaya steps back a bit, eyes wide. Her hand covers her mouth, and it's like she hadn't figured it out before now. "W-what do you mean gone..?" she says meekly.

"I mean they're not coming back," he says, and his voice breaks. You've never seen him like this, but you really couldn't bring yourself to give less of a shit if you tried.

"So he killed them, and you didn't fucking do anything to stop it?" you hiss angrily. You're surprised your voice is still so quiet. You expected to yell.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "They're not dead. He sucked them into some…house-shaped juju thing." Jane's crying even harder now, and Roxy glares at Dirk with tears in her eyes. Jake curls in on himself a bit, and now Dirk's looking away from everyone. "We… we couldn't do anything," he adds weakly.

"Bullshit!" You can feel blood on your hands; your claws broke the skin. But it's nothing compared to the burning feeling in your chest. "What do you mean you couldn't do anything?! You were all supposed to watch each other's backs!" Fuck, your vision's blurry and everything's tinted red; you _hate_ crying.

"Karkat." You feel Terezi's small hands on your arm, pulling you back. You hadn't even realized you'd started storming towards him. And you barely feel it when you tear your arm away from her and continue forward. By the time your fist meets Dirk Strider's face, all of your senses are numb. You don't feel anything. "Karkat!"

Kanaya's crying. You hate seeing Kanaya cry. Even worse than that is seeing her worrying about you when she's already crying. But why is she crying? She doesn't give a shit about Dave. She doesn't know what you're feeling. "Karkat, please," she's saying, "don't. It won't bring them back." Why is Kanaya holding you back? This is the troll who sawed Eridan in half for killing her, even when she came back as a badass rainbow drinker. And now you're standing in front of four immortal humans who are responsible for your matesprit – no, _boyfriend's_ disappearance, and she doesn't want to let you punch one of them?

"Let go," you growl, yanking away from her. She has an iron grip on your arm, and soon you feel Terezi clinging to the other one. "Fucking let me go!"

"Chill the fuck out, Karkat," you hear from behind you. "Your boyfriend's gone. Fucking deal with it."

You spin around as best as you can with them holding onto you and glare at Vriska. "Shut the fuck up, you-"

Why is Vriska making that expression? You can't even read it. Is this what Vriska Serket looks like when she's about to cry? But why does she give a shit? "You're not the only one fucking hurt by this, so stop making it about you," she spits, before turning and walking away.

"What the fuck do you know?!" you yell after her, ignoring the way your voice cracks. "Y-you-" You sob, and that's it. You've already expended all of your energy, and Terezi and Kanaya let you go just in time to let you sink to your knees and cry.

"Where are you going?" Terezi asks. Who cares, really?

Vriska scoffs. "In case you forgot, there's a whole new universe waiting for us," she says without turning to look back at anyone. "And there's gonna be a pissed off snake monster if you guys don't get your shit together to take care of it like she wants."

"Vriska, please," Kanaya says tiredly. Her arm is around your shoulders. "She's right, though. We have work to be done, Karkat."

"Leave me alone," you growl.

For some reason, you followed her gentle tugging, and found yourself numbly shuffling along back to Echidna's lair. You had no idea what the fuck she was saying, and you honestly tuned Kanaya out entirely by the time you got there. You really don't remember anything after that.

Where the fuck are you now?


	2. Chapter 2

AC: :33 *ac curiously swats at her furiend with her paw!*  
AC: :33 good morning! *she says cheerfully*  
AC: :33 *ac patiently waits fur a response from karkitty, whos probably still sleeping like the silly honkbeast he is!*  
AC: :33 *ac gets tired of waiting after a while, though*  
AC: :33 *and decides to leave her message here to be seen whenever her furiend awakens!*  
AC: :33 me and terezi and vriskers are going to hang out later and i wanted you to come with us!  
AC: :33 its been a while since any of us have seen you  
AC: :33 we miss you!  
AC: :33 …  
AC: :/ ok well i guess let me know when you get this and well make plans to hang out then!

CA: hey kar  
CA: i just wwanted to say that  
CA: you should consider comin to see me once in a goddamn wwhile  
CA: or maybe lettin me come see you  
CA: wwevve got shit to talk about  
CA: like  
CA: i dont knoww  
CA: anythin  
CA: thats not the kinda shitty one-sided convversation wwere havvin right fuckin now  
CA: because contrary to popular belief  
CA: i really liked talkin to you  
CA: and kinda hoped this neww wworld wwould be like a fresh start or somethin  
CA: and wwe could be friends again or some shit  
CA: if im a piece a shit you can just tell me  
CA: you dont havve to ignore me and hope ill get the message  
CA: look just  
CA: get back to me sometime ok  
CA: i really wwant to see you  
CA: or at least  
CA: fuckin COMMUNICATE wwith you or somethin  
CA: anywway  
CA: later I guess

You really don't know how to go about answering any of these god-forsaken messages. The usernames are fucking _haunting_. You hadn't seen them online in a very, very long time. You never thought you'd see it again outside of your dreams.

And yet, here they are. Colorful, online. arsenicCatnip. caligulasAquarium. adiosToreador, twinArmageddons, centaursTesticle – they're all here.

But there's one name that's never been online.

turntechGodhead.

You slam your laptop shut before your heart can start racing. You don't know why you don't just fucking delete it out of your list. It's just taking up space anyway, freaking you out for absolutely no goddamn reason. After all, you got rid of the others to clean up your friends list. It can't be that hard, right? It's just a name. An empty name that nobody's using. There's no point in keeping it there.

…

You decide you'll do it later.

You sigh, turning away from your husktop and standing. A concerning number of your joints crack and pop as you do, and you realize that you don't even know how long you'd been sitting in that position. Holy fuck, is it really nearing afternoon already? You didn't sleep worth a _shit_. Great job, jackass.

Your phone vibrates on the desk. You keep forgetting that Trollian has a phone app now… or that Sollux fucking _gave_ you a phone for your wriggling day. You're not sure why everyone rushed to get you gifts. They only had about a week to do it; it wasn't really worth all of the effort. You're sure as hell not.

Speak of the devil, the messages are from Sollux. You don't bother reading them before walking away. After all, how can you stomach talking to the friends you aren't responsible for saving? And you can't exactly just say HEY, SORRY, I'M A TOTAL PIECE OF SHIT AND CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW. OR POSSIBLY EVER. BYE! It doesn't work like that. As fucking marvelous as it would be if life could be that simple for you, it just doesn't work. So you're stuck in an endless loop of being an even bigger piece of shit because all you can do is ignore their messages.

Isn't life just fucking grand?

You're wandering aimlessly around your hive again. You want to say you need to stop doing that, but really, it's better than staring at the husktop screen all the time. You yawn. Your body's begging you for sleep, but it can keep begging, because you'll sleep when you're fucking dead. That's what it feels like to sleep nowadays, anyway. You go unconscious for several hours; no dreams, no nightmares, no nothing. And you always wake sick to your stomach. No way, you've had enough of that.

Except the lack of sleep is fucking with you. You swear you're hearing things. Right now, there's a ringing in your ears. It'd be one thing if it was a constant sound, but it's not. It comes and goes at irregular intervals and it's _so fucking annoying-_

Wait.

That's not in your head holy shit you're an idiot. You head for the front door and, without even stopping to check and see who's on the other side, yank it open.

Kanaya's expression is a surprised one, probably because of how forcefully you'd opened the door. Your expression softens a bit; she's the one person you're actually not opposed to seeing. "Hi," she says somewhat awkwardly.

"…Hi." You look her over quickly. She looks the same as she always did, like everything that's happened hasn't affected her at all. You wish you were the same.

"Our friends haven't been able to get ahold of you," she says after a moment. "I wanted to make sure you were okay." There's another pause before she quickly adds, "And I wanted to hang out with you for a while."

They told her. Holy fucking shit, of course everyone told her they couldn't talk to you. You ignored your friends, and made them all worry, and Kanaya got worried and felt the need to come check on you and _it's all because you're too much of a piece of shit to do anything._ Good job. No, really, good fucking job.

Not to mention you're leaving her waiting outside instead of inviting her in to sit down. Fucking hell, does your stupidity ever fucking end?

"Is something wrong?" Kanaya asks. You snap back to reality. Every second you spend thinking about yourself is another second she's waiting around outside. Way to be a narcissistic asshole.

"No, sorry, I just wasn't expecting company," you finally tell her. You step aside, like you should have done as soon as you'd opened the door. "Come on in. Uh, pretend my hive doesn't look like a barkbeast fucked everything before proceeding to simultaneously piss and shit everywhere."

A very small smile crossed Kanaya's face. "I'll do my best to overlook any signs of dog feces I may find," she said as she stepped inside. She spent a moment looking around, and you couldn't help hesitating a moment before closing the door. Your hive really does look like shit. It's a wonder she isn't horrified by it. You really wish she'd leave; Kanaya deserves to be somewhere better than this.

Why did you have to make her feel like she needed to come here?

"Have you eaten anything yet today?" she asks suddenly, without even turning to look at you.

"What?" You feel your bloodpusher jump into your throat. There's more worry behind that question, she's worried enough, don't make her worry about you any more-

Kanaya shrugs nonchalantly. "It's still quite early. I thought I might fix us a nice lunch to share. Unless you've already eaten, in which case that would be a waste of food. So I would like to know whether or not you've eaten today."

"Oh." Okay. Calm down. You haven't had Kanaya's cooking aside from what she could scrape up on that god-forsaken meteor all that time ago, but you vaguely recall a message from Eridan saying it was 'fuckin incredible Kar you'vve got to try it.' "No, I haven't had anything yet. I was actually about to look for something to eat when you got here."

She smiles. "Wonderful. If you don't mind showing me to your nutritionblock, I'll see what I can find."

Damn, that sounds nice. "Alright, thanks."

If you can stay calm and not say anything fucking stupid, maybe you can get through this and… actually kind of enjoy it.


End file.
